June 17, 2012

Aaron M. Renn writes about what he calls Chicago's "demographic disaster" in City Journal:

Begin with Chicago’s population decline during the 2000s, an exodus of more than 200,000 people that wiped out the previous decade’s gains. Of the 15 largest cities in the United States in 2010, Chicago was the only one that lost population; indeed, it suffered the second-highest total loss of any city, sandwiched between first-place Detroit and third-place, hurricane-wrecked New Orleans. While New York’s and L.A.’s populations clocked in at record highs in 2010, Chicago’s dropped to a level not seen since 1910. Chicago is also being “Europeanized,” with poorer minorities leaving the center of the city and forced to its inner suburbs: 175,000 of those 200,000 lost people were black.

The second Mayor Daley took a striking number of vacations in Paris, and brought back some highly publicized good ideas, like floodlighting bridges over the Chicago River at night just because it looks cool. I suspect, however, that the most important idea he brought back from Paris was that Americans were nuts to let violent poor people push them out of their own great cities.

142 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Chicago has had a remarkable renaissance the last twenty years with many, many areas becoming gentrified and white families increasing in number. I live near the former Cabrini Green housing project where cab drivers used to refuse to drive down Division for fear of getting shot and it is now full of white yuppie townhouses. You are now seeing companies moving their headquarters back into the city from the suburbs as they can't attract younger people to work outside the city. Roscoe Village, Lincoln Square, South Loop, West Loop, Ukrainian Village, East Village, West Town, Lakeview, Pilsen, Logan Square, Wicker Park/Bucktown are all more white and middle clases than they used to be. I am only half kidding when I say that Chicago has become San Francisco without hills and with worse weather.

Chicago will never be Paris. Don't be ridiculous. How many poems dedicated to Chicago by great poets there have been? How many great scientists, poets, writers and artists have been compelled to move to Chicago for inspiration?

The U.S.A may or may not be better than France, but please don't drag the French through the mud by comparing the City of Light to that semi-provincial, freezing, windy mess that is Chicago.

The ONLY American city worthy of being spoken in the same sentence as the great cities of Europe like Paris, Rome, Florence, London or even minor stars like Hamburg, St.Petersburg or Barcelona is New York City and that is stretching it. The most intelligent and civilized Americans I have ever met are white people from New York. the rest of Americans strike me as provincial yobs with zero finesse or culture - and I can speak about this with good authority since I have been to all American states except Alaska.

In fact, Europeans speak very highly of NYC. They regard it as one of thecities of their own. In fact, it is the only American city they know about or care about. Like Nabokov once said, NYC is the only place in America fit for civilized living. The rest of America is good for cowboys, buffallo and Paleolithic savages. I personally don't regard NYC as an American city, but an European city on the other side of the Atlantic. There is definitely an Old World vibe to NYC, even more so than to Boston.

Besides the preposterousness of comparing the majestic cities of Europe to America's provincial hamlets, there is the issue that the comparison does not hold. European kick their poor to the suburbs because the oldest and most expensive residential areas in cities like Paris, Munich, Florence, etc, are at the center of town. This is not the case in the U.S with it's middle-class, petit burgeoise Society, that has made middle-class residents to go live in the suburbs whilst the center of town is the commericial hub and only inexpensive residential facilities are available - and all American cities are like this. The U.S.A is a petit burrgeoise Society to the core, including in city planning. The fathers of your Society(the Europeans), on the other hand, went through a LOT of history before the arrival of the burgeoise class and the concept of city planning even existed, and this is reflected in the design of their cities. The bottom line is that American cities will never have an "European" distibution of residential areas by socio-economic class, and poor people will always congregate and live downtown in American cities.

I've long found it astounding how much Chicago just dropped off the nation's mental map since the early '90s. It used to be America's "second city"!

Stand-up comedy, which was the new rock music and a Chicago specialty, nosedived. The up-nosed elite gave up on jazz. In the hair metal hangover, "dude shredding a guitar" briefly yielded his icongraphic supremacy to "dude wailing on a saxophone in front of a brick wall" -- who was practically Chicago's mascot -- but who just faded off.

Pinball, which you probably didn't notice until someone pointed it out was a particularly Chicago thing, fell apart - of the 3 great manufacturers, only one's still limping along. To the extent that it's going through a renaissance right now it's players in the Seattle-Portland-SF-Boulder corridor, and an upstart manufacturer in New Jersey.

The Bulls took over from the Cowboys as America's Team. But since the Jordan era, nothing. We even had a president come out of Chicago and… no one one noticed.

The only place where developers can still make money is to build condos/townhouses in 'reclaimed' inner cities. Suburbs are awash in foreclosed houses, but if you can find a way to clear out the infestation close to downtown, build it and they will come.

Of course, nobody cares about those hapless suburbanites who get 'section eighted', but then their property values are already in the gutter figuratively, so why not make it literally ?

"Chicago used to have a scrappy reputation. That reputation started changing significantly in the late 80's, roughly around the time the Cubs became the mecca for the soft college, coffee-shop, health-conscious, text-message, social media, socially tolerant, new urban crowd that moved into Chicago from the burbs and other cities and made Chicago a very different feeling place.

Now, Chicago is an effete urban, "walkable," liberal paradise, where it was something very different in 1982."

The second Mayor Daley took a striking number of vacations in Paris, and brought back some highly publicized good ideas, like floodlighting bridges over the Chicago River at night just because it looks cool. I suspect, however, that the most important idea he brought back from Paris was that Americans were nuts to let violent poor people push them out of their own great cities.

If anyone at iSteve hasn't seen it yet, the S-IDF has also weighed in on this question:

"Chicago is also being “Europeanized,” with poorer minorities leaving the center of the city and forced to its inner suburbs: 175,000 of those 200,000 lost people were black."

- So there is a silver-lining in all of this after all? A city can become so vibrant that even the vibrant will leave and it can begin to return back to its former, more peaceful and productive self again?

.I am only half kidding when I say that Chicago has become San Francisco without hills and with worse weather.and worse location - there is NOTHING to do outside of chicago, the midwest is pretty dull in that sense - no real mountains, no hills, no real oceanside (the lake doesn't cut it), yeah mackinow,yeah 'the dunes' yeah 'the dells' but it's all second rate compared to the access someone in Boston or NY has or of course San Fran.

also chicago really does have a 'second city' feel - the people there just lack style, grace, i feel more isolated, less cultured there than say , santa barbara which is a city 1/100th its size.

located in the middle of Illinois farmland?that farmland, some of the best in the world, has all been surbanized. When I moved to dupage county in 78 there were still farms arounds... now.. none to be seen, from what i understand (moved out in 84)

"Are there rings of massive housing projects way out miles from the city center located in the middle of Illinois farmland?"

No. I think the CHA (or whoever) is implementing a "dispersed housing" policy, that is, scattering the vibrant poor throughout the suburbs, similar to what they did in Memphis, TN. I imagine that eventually the results will be similarly vibrant.

I live in a small (100,000 people) mid-Illinois town that used to be quiet, peaceful, and virtually crime-free – the sort of town where kids could ride their bikes around long after dark. Then in the late 1990’s Chicago secretly begin to transfer tens of thousands of dangerous Africans out of Chicago and into all the down-state towns. Crime, drugs, gangs, drive-by shootings, and racial attacks immediately skyrocketed. Now there are ~ 5 murders each year, and weekly late-night “For Trayvon” beat-downs by roaming gangs of blacks on the White students at the local college.

When this transfer of Africans began, one of our town Council Members said, “It is the Christian thing to take them in, and it will improve our Diversity!” Later that year, her husband was robbed and killed by one of her loved Diversitoids – he got $8. It crushed her – she went from an optimistic, confident , dynamic community leader to a depressed crazy person. She will go into old age without her husband, and likewise for her kids and grandkids.

My peaceful, safe Mid-western city has been turned in to a crime and stress-filled multicultural hell. What is the response of the citizens? More “Not in our town”, “Diversity is our greatest strength”, “Stop the Hate”, and let’s spend another10 million Dollars on an additional 10 new Diversity programs from free child care to mentors to rec-centers, to make-a-job-programs for “disadvantaged youth.”

I am a professional in my early 30s who is raising a family in Chicago. Chicago has changed dramatically and it's perfectly acceptable to raise a middle class family there now. There are some local schools which are good but for the most part your kids have to test into the good schools. The competition is not too fierce so it's often a safe bet your kid will get into one of these good schools.

The big advantage I think Chicago has in the future is that it is the only city in the Midwest that can provide the chic urban lifestyle that people in their 20s and 30s want. The last peak in births was in 1990 and all those kids in their early 20s will insist on moving to the big city. While the coasts have many options: NY, LA, SF, SD, DC, Boston. There is only one option in the middle of the country: Chicago. I expect Chicago to be swamped with young professional white people when the economy improves and they can move out of their parents houses.

Moving the morally deviant and economically incompetent out to the ring suburbs is one step short of restricting them to reservations or homelands. The wisdom of apartheid should be clear now: it is the only way to realize a safe middle class society free of carjackings, flash mobs, child molesters, random murder, unusable public schools, hate crimes, and all these other abominations brought to American streets by third world immigration and the civil rights act.

I'm under the impression that all large cities reported lower than expected numbers during the 2010 Census. NYC was estimated to have about 8.4 million people in 2009, but the 2010 Census only showed 8.175 million, little more than the 2000 Census. The yearly inter-Census estimates for most large cities were much higher than the eventual Census results. I don't know if this was due to a change in methodology between the Censuses.

There's been a lot of residential construction in NYC between 2000 and 2010, so I suspect that the actual population increased much more than the Census indicated. I'm guessing that the Census undercount increased between 2000 and 2010 for some procedural reason, and I'm guessing that this happened for many large US cities.

"Chicago’s dropped to a level not seen since 1910."

Well, Manhattan's population peaked at 2.3 million in 1910. It's now less than 1.6 million. I know that Paris proper also peaked in about 1910. This really depends on where you draw the line between the city and the suburbs. In general, 100 years ago cities tended to be smaller, but denser.

Chicago suffers for not having a "calling card industry"? Meh, that sounds like airline inflight magazine nonsense.

Chicago's disfunctional politics might have something to do with the fact that that city doesn't benefit from actual, um, democracy; it's a one-party "state".

One mystery is how GDP per capita could lag the US as a whole, if the city supposedly gentrified (and lost 175,000 blacks). Our hint: the article never mentions Hispanics. That made it easy, leading me straight to http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=182511where I learned:

According to recently released census data, the city saw a 7 percent drop in non-Hispanic whites and a 21 percent decrease in blacks since 2000; the Latino population increased by 3 percent to 753,644.

That comment about Rahm Emanuel was amazing, he actually told that to the head of the teacher's union? Chicago is on the upswing, definitely. BTW, I was puzzled by the title of the post, now I realize it was ironic. I've been to Chicago three times in the last four years, and believe me the city on the North Side and Downtown is booming, even with the recession. The city continues to have the world's best architecture, with far fewer 19th century buildings than NYC. There is a booming theatre district and comedy improv and comedy club scene as well. With a relatively young realist Democratic mayor, the city should be in very good shape for years to come.

I don't know...I flew into Midway Airport a couple of years ago, rented a car and drove away. Spent some time in the general Chicago area. Brought the car back a few days later and was glad to be leaving. A lot of Chicago is (still, I imagine) nothing short of ugly and depressing (add to that bitterly cold in the winter). The ugliest kind of sprawl. Too many poor Blacks and an increasing number of poor Hispanics. Way too many.

The problem with ridding our major urban centers of the violent and the indigent is that they are displaced to towns where people are trying to raise kids, where family formation is important.

Those who move out (spurred by the Feds and their section 8 vouchers) have take their behaviors with them and haved destroyed suburban residential neighborhoods and schools.

At least if they had stayed in the cities where the young and college educated and CHILDLESS live, they'd not destroy the places where we're trying to provide safe, orderly places for kids.

Who lives in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle (other than runaway kids on drugs?): gays and young kids with shiny new degrees, looking for careers, money, exciting times. Who cares if they have to put up with the undesirables, esp. if the undesirables are limited to certain areas the rest of them can avoid?

The decision to move these people out is one reason so many formerly middle class schools are a damn mess and formerly middle class neighborhoods are deteriorating.

Middle class people look to move out and see no place to go. They can't afford moving to cities and the newly gentrified areas, and they can't trust that a neighborhood ten miles or one mile away will be any safer from the elements that are moving in (and right now their house isn't worth anything anyway), so they sit in their formerly nice but modest neighborhoods and see it sinking, their houses burglarized, their cars broken into, their schools fighting the influx of those who behave like animals. Formerly open campus high schools that allowed students to go off campus for lunch have switched to a closed campus, have had wrought iron fences put up around them to prevent students from leaving and non-students from entering. What a picture.

Yeah, if you could get all of the feral, not just some, to move out of Oakland, the Mayor and the press and the Governor could scream, "The city is experiencing a renewal the likes of which we've not seen," and they'd never ask what is happening to the outlying towns whose neighborhoods and schools have been destroyed by them.

No, the press and the pols will never ask what happens when the violent who are confined in one area simply spread out among all areas and continue to reproduce.

Whenever I hear that a city is experience "renewal," I know that surrounding towns are suffering deterioration.

Chicago's banlieues are its formerly white suburbs, whose inhabitants are now enjoying a second round of ethnic cleansing, paid for by their own tax dollars, and brought to you by the same worthless elite who cleansed them the first time. Class war as race war.

How does this coexist with the fact that Chicago's flash mob epidemic is worse than any other major American city except DC?

I lived in a gentrified north side neighborhood from 2005 to 2007 and loved it. As the first anonymous commented, the gentrified parts of the city offer great quality of life at a comparatively low cost of living.

But I returned last summer on business and stayed for a week in the Loop. I didn't get flash mobbed, but in seven days in Chicago I had more potentially dangerous encounters with aggressively misbehaving blacks than I have in two years of living in NYC -- panhandlers who didn't take "no" for an answer, crazy people getting in my face on the train, drivers who wouldn't slow down for a white pedestrian, etc.

These sorts of encounters hardly ever happened to me when I lived there. My anecdotal impression was that Chicago had gotten worse in the time I'd been away.

I haven't kept up with Chicago politics or demographics, so I don't know what the explanation could be. Are the black working poor leaving for the exurbs while the worst of the publicly-housed welfare clients stay put?

We choose to have children and stay in Chicago until recently. Say what you want to about Daley Jr., but he made the city appealing.

With whatever behind closed doors deals it took, I saw the buses and trains become family friendly, I experienced my entire neighborhood (wicker park/bucktown) blossom into a mini city with it's own eateries, theaters, children's activities (ballet studios, art class spaces and children's music venues). We grew roots and enjoy our church community and deep friendships with some of my neighbors.

Many others must have felt the same as we are the demographic that wears Chicago flag patches on our messenger bags, gets Chicago flag tattoos (not me but I see a lot of them) and dress our children in clothing decorated with Chicago flags.

My husband and I have really enjoyed our almost 15 years here. Now I am coming to understand that the renaissance was mostly due to the benevolent dictatorship of Daley Jr. Yes there was graft, shakedowns, and corruption but there was also strong police presence to deter shenanigans and the grease that kept the machine running that made this a great place to live and work.

It saddens me to see the rapid decline of the past year or so. The beaches and other public attractions are dangerous to use. The small lovely neighborhood parks (with all new landscaping and play equipment courtesy of Daley, his Aldermen, and army of patronage city worker jobs) that were playdate destinations for Mommies to sip coffee while children played are now overtaken by huge gaggles of fat preteens (girls look like hookers with fake nails & pounds of makeup, boys who can't speak at any volume other than "loud" and who have to touch their crotches at least three times a minute) who scare the small children away from the water features and who "play" (hitting each other alternated with making out while using the crudest language combined with an indecipherable cant) on the playground equipment. We try to shoo them off and call the police but the police do not often respond or if they do they only loosely enforce the age limit (12 years old) for use of the playground.

The schools are still horrific (and getting worse) so we pay to send our children to a private school, I can't use the library branch by us because it is filled with men who watch porn publicly all day on the tax payer funded computers.

Cultural attractions have to be driven to (museums and such) since taking the trains or buses is again a dangerous undertaking.

After all the crime, the high taxes, the encouragement of idiocracy breeding, the fact you have to drive everywhere anyway we decided to move out of Chicago.

My Husband can drive to work and not worry about his children and wife around creepy men at the library or getting hurt at a playground. I will be able to buy flip flops at Target (long story).

We purchased a home in Warrenville and are fixing it up so when our lease ends in March we can move. We are returning to be by family. Even with commuting costs for my husband factored in, we will save money and be safe.

I predict the pendulum swings back. More families will be leaving Chicago and with them the breadwinning (tax paying) married males who head them. Unless something changes - 15 years from now Chicago will look more like Detroit (although it is hard to imagine it will look exactly like Detroit).

Then where did Daley get the idea for tearing up Miegs field at midnight? Not for Paris, I hope. When he did this, many people questioned his sanity, and this scared away many investors. Daley's corruption has driven the city to bankrupcy. Chicagoians can tell you about the parking meter deal and the "privatation" deals to his friend, the TIF districts that drain our city of badly needed money. We need a forensity audit of the budget and a federal attorney that is not afraid to put Irishmen behind bars. Then Chicago will be a great city!

I almost wept when I and my wife walked around London at night in the central city. It was a warm summer night and people were eating and drinking in sidewalk cafes. In America there are no comparable districts. Parts of Georgetown and maybe a few blocks on Union Street in San Francisco still have a little civilization. But nothing like central London.

I'm going to cheat and comment on the News-of-the-Day, not your posting.

Rodney keng died and the TV news show all report on the riots incorrectly. The cause of the riots was media bias. The real story is in Lou Cannon's book. Alas it's an 800 page book and TV newsmen are lazy.

Steve, more than any city in the United States, Chicago has implemented a policy of pulling high IQ types from the suburbs and getting them to live in the city while pushing lower IQ types from the city out to the suburbs through section 8.

But overall does this have a eugenic or a dysgenic effect? I would guess that if those high iq people were living in the suburbs they would have an average of 2.5 children each, but with their decision to move to the city they are down to 1.2 children each.

So making cities more attractive may actually be dysgenic.

Another interesting question -

The evidence is that in societies in which women are expected to adhere to traditionalist roles, high IQ women choose to have few children.

In societies where women are expected to embrace ANTI traditional roles, high IQ women have more children

Now, as an adherent to HBD, I am concerned with two things. Can people of European ancestry be persuaded to have children, and secondly, can the higher IQ among those people of European ancestry be persuaded to have children.

The evidence is crystal clear that in the countries with more traditionalist sex roles, white women decide to have few or zero children (see Spain, Poland, Italy)

The evidence is also clear that in countries that embrace radical anti traditionalism in sex roles, the white women do have children (Sweden, France, Denmark)

This is beyond dispute. however, can anyone comment on in which societies white fertility is eugenic and in which is it dysgenic?

Are the traditionalist countries (Spain, Italy, Poland) more eugenic or more dysgenic than their traditionalist counterparts?

Only once we see the facts from Europe can we, the HBD aware, decide to push for traditionalism or anti traditionalism in the USA.

I mean, for myself, all I care about is encouraging eugenic breeding. We here in the USA are rapidly heading for Ideocracy. I am happy to implement traditionalism or anti traditionalism, whichever is proven to be more eugenic.

It's kind of surprising that someone writing for City Journal would be decrying the gentrification ( = europeanization) of Chicago. While not alrt-right by any means, City Journal hosts Heather McDonald, who has a lot to say about the influence of ghetto blacks on big cities. Mr Renn's name reminded me of something and here it is :

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001110-the-white-city

He's one of those guys who loves to complain about Portland, Austin etc being "too white" and how they absolutely need diversity etc.

"In that conversation, he did say to me that 25 percent of the students in this city are never going to be anything, never going to amount to anything and he was never going to throw money at them."

There is this trend of some cities becoming powerful pseudo city-states controlled by the Big Oligarchs (Bloomberg and Wall St. in NYC, Emmanuel and Crown/Pritzker in Chicago). I imagine this will continue as the US nation-state continues to hollow out.

Since the nation-state is hollowing out and the Big Oligarchs are increasingly viewing their major cities as personal fiefdoms, they can't pass on the cost of this sort of thing (e.g. the bottom "25%" Emmanuel alludes to) onto the rest of the nation-state which is being hollowed out and declining, and are being more practical about maintaining a tax base.

Mr. Sailer, were you lucky enough to view Fox Sunday's roundtable discussion concerning Obama's latest immigration initiative? It's must-see TV. On what other issue is there such bipartisan consensus as there is on the one of depressing the wages and employment opportunities of young, not-highly-educated Americans. On this at least both Republicans and Democrats (and Fox News) can agree. The greatest depression for young people in the history of the republic is going to get worse, and why not?

http://youtu.be/MJOcWlRuP84

Look at Joe Trippi. When did guys like Joe stop pretending to appear interested in the plight of the working classes? The Left's abandonment of working people is a sight to see.

I don't think Chicago is anything but a massive failure waiting to collapse Detroit style.

Why?

Chicago as you've pointed out depends in the FIRE model (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, I'd add Entertainment/Media). Which centers around "big" projects that depend on front-men (like Obama or Jessie Jackson) removing Blacks and to some extent Hispanics from public housing and replacing the city center non-White violent core with yuppie rich housing. "Big" luxury condos, apartments, retail spaces, office towers. Where the money is all in one place, guaranteed, unlike individual middle class suburban housing.

HOWEVER, that model depends on FIRE money and Black/Hispanic VOTES. And it is falling down because (yes once again WE LIVE IN A SCIENCE FICTION WORLD) technology adopted by the "youths" (young Black men and women) are destroying Chicago.

Second City Cop has covered extensively the "wilding" or Flash Mobs in Chicago. Mobs up to 400 strong are assembled on the fly using Twitter and Facebook by smart phones, providing absolute local dominance (only shooting the mob which is politically impossible will disperse them) in the LOOP, Miracle Mile, Lakeside, etc.

Yuppie Doctors, lawyers, etc. are regularly beaten, their wives harassed and humiliated (humiliation of the guys wrt their women is the object) by massive mobs, who have made the trains unsafe at nearly any hour. Restaurants, bars, bike paths, shops, etc. are now no-go places, particularly with school out.

Twitter, Facebook, and Smart Phones means Black "youths" can roam and dominate as they please all those nice urban areas. Making those luxury condos, shops, bars, restaurants, shopping districts, and so on useless. Emmanuel cannot shoot these people, he needs their votes. All he has done is deny it is happening, leaned on a compliant media to not report it (the stuff just leaks out on the internet). And so on.

Chicago depends on keeping those "youths" out of the city center. That is not possible, any more than Paris can do it, or Berlin, or London.

Look at the London Riots. Same Twitter/Facebook + smartphone driven events. Dependence on the urban "Blue" model for Black/non-White votes means there is no ability to crack down and more importantly, prevent the mobs from beating and humiliating the White/Asian men they come across.

The victims may not become Derbyshire aware, but will simply avoid urban areas like the plague. This stuff can spread (avoiding urban areas) like wildfire. Look at how quickly Westwood died. Even Seattle has this problem -- PC prevents cops/authorities from cracking down on "youths" (mostly Black thugs) making urban spaces unlivable. Mass transit and other pedestrian friendly things only make this worse.

You can ethnically cleanse Blacks out of a city centre, but that nice rapid transit simply lets them come in and raid like Vikings on a dragon-prowed ship. All that money in the FIRE model is helpless against all those votes and PC indoctrination.

No urban area is safe with Twitter, Facebook and Smartphones given rapid transit and the like.

A LOT of wealth is going to be destroyed, just as in Detroit. Chicago's destiny is Detroit. Paris, London, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Stockholm will share the same fate, already Malmo and Arhus are no-go areas for natives.

I don't think there's anything to be done in the near term* about flash mobs, riot meet-ups, shoplifting conventions, etc.--just last week had 2 violent episodes in SE part of Portland, Ore. which is a cliche of gentrification. Subtly they'll find ways to make it inhospitable to ruffians, though it'll be hit-and-miss.

*as London 2011 showed, having a police force on hand doesn't necessarily make a difference

I don't know where you get this report that Westwood died. It's not fashionable for nearby blacks any more (in common w/ most neighborhoods above the Century Fwy and west of downtown) but the remaining presence of the university and spendy Iranians don't seem to have killed anything.

As someone who works in Detroit, you guys are nuts to compare Chicago to it. Admittedly, the South side of Chicago is almost identical to Detroit, with downtown Detroit equal to the Hyde Park neighborhood, both surrounded by miles of blighted ghettos. But then Chicago has the highly prosperous downtown and decent North side. And it's South side ghetto is conveniently losing population, and the prosperous downtown seems to be growing South into former ghettos.

I almost wept when I and my wife walked around London at night in the central city. It was a warm summer night and people were eating and drinking in sidewalk cafes. In America there are no comparable districts. Parts of Georgetown and maybe a few blocks on Union Street in San Francisco still have a little civilization. But nothing like central London.

This is simply not true. Manhattan is full of neighborhoods like that. Even in Philadelphia, a "warm summer evening" will find respectable people out and about in parts of Center City.

Well, sorry to see the Wicker Park lady go. You almost couldn't pay me enough to move to Warrenville. I live on the Gold Coast and spend a fair amount of time in Wicker Park/Bucktown/West Town and it certainly seems like the near west areas continue to improve to me.

Well yeah, OK, that helps. The former lost 30% of their population recently for well-publicized reasons. Whether the mayor's white ([X] Landrieu) or black ([Z] Morial) the dynamics are dissimilar to other port cities. The Panama Canal widening likely will benefit NO last & least.

It's kind of surprising that someone writing for City Journal would be decrying the gentrification

Not really, because it's not exactly for "gentrification" he kvetches. CJ is rife with blurbs under near-parodical names (cf. "Sol Stern", "Myron Magnet" like a gang of newsies idling outside Uncle Mortimer's Deli) and perpetually longing for some Broadway revue of LaGuardia's exploits

The young kids aren't just leaving the small towns and suburbs. They're moving to the cities trying to find another way of life and most will fail to form families that can support children as “blue state” real estate prices soar even higher. Demographic collapse is more than just the loss of a way of life. When it is accompanied by deliberate policies of race replacement, it is genocide.

Regarding these kids moving to the cities to expend the last of their people’s vital force:

The most intelligent and civilized Americans I have ever met are white people from New York. the rest of Americans strike me as provincial yobs with zero finesse or culture - and I can speak about this with good authority since I have been to all American states except Alaska.

I think what you mean are white people who move to live and work in New York. Not people actually from New York. Many of the white people actually from New York (guidos, working class, and the like) are just as coarse, provincial, and cultureless as people from other parts of the US.

In fact, Europeans speak very highly of NYC. They regard it as one of thecities of their own. In fact, it is the only American city they know about or care about. Like Nabokov once said, NYC is the only place in America fit for civilized living. The rest of America is good for cowboys, buffallo and Paleolithic savages. I personally don't regard NYC as an American city, but an European city on the other side of the Atlantic. There is definitely an Old World vibe to NYC, even more so than to Boston.

I disagree that NYC has an Old World vibe or feels like a European city. It doesn't at all.

However, it is true that it does seem like the only "real" genuine city in America.

I almost wept when I and my wife walked around London at night in the central city. It was a warm summer night and people were eating and drinking in sidewalk cafes. In America there are no comparable districts. Parts of Georgetown and maybe a few blocks on Union Street in San Francisco still have a little civilization. But nothing like central London.

Ever heard of New York City? Georgetown and San Fran don't even compare.

“the preposterousness of comparing the majestic cities of Europe to America's provincial hamlets”

The majestic cities of Europe, while they are nice and interesting places, are nowadays more like curators of their glorious past than furnaces of creativity. America’s provincial hamlets aren’t doing too badly. Chicago has been affiliated with close on 100 Nobel winners; how many can Florence and Barcelona claim?

"The most intelligent and civilized Americans I have ever met are white people from New York. the rest of Americans strike me as provincial yobs with zero finesse or culture - and I can speak about this with good authority since I have been to all American states except Alaska."

What is behind the surge in homicides so far this year in Chicago (up 44 percent over last year)? There is also the continuous threat of violent flash mobs popping up on the 'law abiding' populous. Seems Chicago was gentrifying nicely up until 2008-9, and has since started to enter a period of decline. I recently read that the return of the vibrant population to the south has slowed considerably in the last year. What would happen to say, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles if the vibrant population began returning?

"There is this trend of some cities becoming powerful pseudo city-states controlled by the Big Oligarchs (Bloomberg and Wall St. in NYC, Emmanuel and Crown/Pritzker in Chicago). I imagine this will continue as the US nation-state continues to hollow out"

"Chicago's banlieues are its formerly white suburbs, whose inhabitants are now enjoying a second round of ethnic cleansing, paid for by their own tax dollars, and brought to you by the same worthless elite who cleansed them the first time. Class war as race war."

The most intelligent and civilized Americans I have ever met are white people from New York. the rest of Americans strike me as provincial yobs with zero finesse or culture - and I can speak about this with good authority since I have been to all American states except Alaska.

"The young kids aren't just leaving the small towns and suburbs. They're moving to the cities trying to find another way of life and most will fail to form families that can support children as “blue state” real estate prices soar even higher. Demographic collapse is more than just the loss of a way of life. When it is accompanied by deliberate policies of race replacement, it is genocide.

Regarding these kids moving to the cities to expend the last of their people’s vital force:

Cui bono?"

You right. Cities do seem to prolong white arrested development. Is it really a great idea to sacrifice the suburbs for that brief stint that graduate students will spend in the trendy city? White people have invested bundles of money in the private property and surrounding civic structures of the suburbs.

Whiskey is right. In NYC, the only insulation that you can really count on is a $2.50 subway fare. I was sure that after 9-11 that the economy would decentralize into a dispersed, telecommuting, small industrial park model, I guess not. I thought that was the whole idea of computer networking.

Let's see how the childless remnant holds up in the walled city, surrounded by the marauders - the Washington DC model.

The saddest part is that the marauders will get the spacious houses, the yards, the parks, the pools, and the schools, for pennies on the dollar, or via section 8, until the whole thing dilapidates.

There's no doubt about it, New York is a city, but a lonely crowd for all but the elite of the elitists. I've commuted there for twenty years and I'm still seeking that edifying vibe. That's just me, I fall asleep at broadway plays.

175,000 blacks have left the city, according to the official numbers. It sure doesn't seem like it, though. Also, it's not just the numbers but the quality of those living here, and it's pretty low. A very large percentage are the absolute bottom of the ghetto barrel, complete with extensive gang tattoos and bad attitudes. A large part of the population is on welfare and considers going to jail a regular part of life.The city has a large floating population of homeless stinkballs that sleep everywhere, most of whom are ex-cons and drug addicts, just walking biohazards.There's plenty of restaurants and entertainment on which to spend one's money; indeed, one can spend every penny they make on that sort of thing, if that's what they wish. It gives parts of the city a touristy, transient feel that visitors adore but residents find shallow. The neon lights lose their charm. If someone wants to reside in this multicultural swamp they had better step carefully.

The comparisons with Detroit are insane, Detroit is literally a city waiting to die, and has been for decades. There are vast areas of the city that are literally devoid of human habitation and have been that way for years, with trees, bushes, and wildlife reclaiming significant sections that are in aggregate larger than the entire city of Vancouver. The current Mayor of Detroit was considering cutting off all city services to over 20 percent of the city. The flashmob craze isn't confined to Chicago, it's been going on in virtually all major cities, and given Emanuel's bluntness with the head of the teacher's union, my guess is that his solution will be still more gentrification. Tourism is a huge industry in Chitown, every time I have gone back I have seen more Europeans visiting than before, trust me Emanuel won't jeopardize that money machine for pandering to people who are the parents of the bottom 25%.

Well, Chicago got a double whammy too many blacks and hispanics. La is now under 10 percent black while Chicago is still around 29 percent or so. Personality, havine one is ok but both groups means double bad stats.

"The majestic cities of Europe, while they are nice and interesting places, are nowadays more like curators of their glorious past than furnaces of creativity. America’s provincial hamlets aren’t doing too badly. Chicago has been affiliated with close on 100 Nobel winners; how many can Florence and Barcelona claim?"

The University of Chicago has produced many Nobelists, especially in economics. That is true.

But just because an university has a ton of money to spend on research and thus is able to attract many scientists does not mean those scientists chose to live there for INSPIRATION, which was my point from the beggining.

And of the top of my head, I can name several scientists of World-historical reknown who's achievements were above Nobel-prize level who chose Paris to live or produced their greatest works there.

When it comes to mathematicians, philosophers and artists, the number FAR(and I must emphasize the "far") surpasses anything that Chicago has EVER produced.

You need to be a fanatically nationalistic American to argue that Chicago is comparable to Paris in World-reknown and historical importance. It is so retarded that I don't even know why I am discussing this with you. I have said it before: the ONLY American city of World-reknown and achievements on the level of the great cities of Europe is New York City. It is the face of the U.S to the World, and the only American city that offers artistic and cultural attractions comparable to the great cities of Europe - and I am being very generous.

Oh, and Barcelona shits all over Chicago when it comes to architectural beauty and aesthetics. Not even close. As for Florence....puhleeeeease. Seriously. Just stop it. You are embarassing yourself.

La is growing compared to Chicago but from 2011 to 2012 in January La grew about.50 while San Diego grew about.9 and even middle size town Anaheim around 340,000 grew about.8 percent. La is similar to Anaheim in demograhics, Hispanics the largest group and whites living in hill areas. Both have asian populations around 15 and13 percent. La has a lot more blacks while Anaheim is under 3 percent black. Hispanics probably can land a job better in Anaheim because of the resort industry is near the hispanic areas of town. Also, both had certain ethnic groups like Arbas. Anaheim has the little Gaza stripped area.

"Chicago will never be Paris. Don't be ridiculous. How many poems dedicated to Chicago by great poets there have been? How many great scientists, poets, writers and artists have been compelled to move to Chicago for inspiration?

The U.S.A may or may not be better than France, but please don't drag the French through the mud by comparing the City of Light to that semi-provincial, freezing, windy mess that is Chicago."

Way to miss the point entirely.

To the extent that iSteve is comparing Chicago to the City of Light, it's for the purpose of challenging Aaron Renn's/City Journal's assertion that Chicago's loss of nearly 200,000 black residents is a sign of the city's demographic collapse.

After having lived in Chicago for 20 years (and being in possession of a better understanding than most on the subject of how the City That Works actually works), Sailer can be forgiven if he notices Chicago's recent transformation into a city built around a large, affluent, sparkling business/residential center, with crumbling, dysfunctional, and crime-ridden areas having been pushed to the outer edges and collar suburbs (like Paris and some other European cities), and wonders whether former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley may have noticed the coincidence that his city's demographic makeup was beginning to bear similarities to the "wealthy in the center city-all bets off in the banlieues" demographic makeup of Paris during one of his frequent visits to the City of Light.

"Besides the preposterousness of comparing the majestic cities of Europe to America's provincial hamlets, there is the issue that the comparison does not hold. European kick their poor to the suburbs because the oldest and most expensive residential areas in cities like Paris, Munich, Florence, etc, are at the center of town. This is not the case in the U.S. with it's middle-class, petit burgeoise Society, that has made middle-class residents to go live in the suburbs whilst the center of town is the commericial hub and only inexpensive residential facilities are available - and all American cities are like this."

"[Europeans] speak very highly of NYC... In fact, it is the only American city they know about or care about."

Since all American national media is based in NYC (minus the Beltway press corps, of course), and since the NYC-based media neither cares about, nor covers anything outside the orbit of Mahnattan/Brooklyn, NYC is, by extension, the only American city that Americans know or care about as well.

"The most intelligent and civilized Americans I have ever met are white people from New York. the rest of Americans strike me as provincial yobs with zero finesse or culture - and I can speak about this with good authority since I have been to all American states except Alaska...

The bottom line is that American cities will never have an "European" distibution of residential areas by socio-economic class, and poor people will always congregate and live downtown in American cities."

Uh, just how many American cities have you actually been to?

This iSteve post pokes fun at the notion, as put forth by the cited City-Journal article, that Chicago's loss of nearly 200,000 poor black residents -- thanks to 20-plus years of gentrification and constant expansion of the wealthy downtown/central city core -- is evidence of Chicago's imminent doom.

Downtown Chicago is wealthy. So are the areas surrounding it. And so are the areas surrounding those surrounding areas.

What's more, Chicago is hardly the only American city that's been experiencing gentrification in it's central area.

Detroit and Cleveland may not be benefiting from very much gentrification, but a whole lot of American cities are.

I don't take you to be an "Anti-American uppity Frenchman" or a "Frog," as some others who have left comments apparently do. For no better reason than your use of whilst, you've got to be a subject of the Queen (though with your heavy condescension toward Americans, you could easily just be a Canadian subject of the Queen). I will, however, question what the hell you were doing on your purportedly extensive American travels.

I don't get it. Where is the decline? They practically have rebuilt the entire North Side in the last 25 years. There are parts of the West Side,like Garfield Park, that were so bad you could literally buy a house for something like $15,000 back in the 80s, that are the hip trendy neighborhoods today. The population decline in a decline that in the long run will just bring more people into the city. I think that other cities will start to copy Chicago in this regard! I think that this article is part of the wave of Illinois and Chicago bashing that started when Obama became president and was accelerated when our governor went to prison.

Now just wait a cotton pickin' minute... Chicago is also being “Europeanized,” with poorer minorities leaving the center of the city and forced to its inner suburbs: 175,000 of those 200,000 lost people were black.

So when minorities pushed 'Europeans' out of cities, it was the bad racist whites engaging in white flight to the peaceful suburbs. When minorities leave for the suburbs they were "pushed out?"

Chicago will never be Paris. Don't be ridiculous. How many poems dedicated to Chicago by great poets there have been? How many great scientists, poets, writers and artists have been compelled to move to Chicago for inspiration?

Carl Sandburg wrote a whole set of <a href="http://carl-sandburg.com/POEMS.htm>Chicago poems</a>. Is he great? I dunno. Come to think of it, how many great poets have <i>dedicated</i> poems to Paris?

The University of Chicago has produced 57 Nobel Prizes in the hard sciences, plus 32 Bank of Sweden Prizes in Economics. France has produces 64 Nobels (and BoS Prizes) in total, in all categories.

“You need to be a fanatically nationalistic American to argue that Chicago is comparable to Paris in World-reknown and historical importance.”

You’re missing my point. European cities had their golden ages, but those were long ago. Since the 1940s, America’s been the main center of intellectual and creative activity in the Western world. Paris had, long ago, the likes of Voltaire and Descartes. Now it’s got Bernard-Henri Levy. Florence had Michelangelo and Machiavelli, now it’s got…who?

Leaving this specific question aside, Chicago does have a distinguished literary history, with authors like Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, and David Mamet, among others.

Whiskey is pretty much on the money here. Detroit is the canary in the coal mine. We know what happened to Detroit. It looks like the same sort of thing is happening to Chicago and soon all other American cities.

Civilization means cities and the most important constituent of cities are citizens - not schools, not infrastructure, and not government services. This was one reason that I quit urban planning. Their attitude was that any people can be molded to any behavior by the clever manipulation of objects like roads, buildings and parks. I think I finally broke with planning when I was was told that they planners had built community at Columbia Maryland by making everyone go down to the street to get their mail.

People were not considered important variables like mailbox placement.

The evidence is pretty much in now. Want to understand community cohesiveness? Look at the ethic/racial stats. Or maybe you want to understand why some nation's are rich and other's poor. I studied that as an undergraduate. Now it's clear. Look at the racial composition of the population.

It is quite simple to fix Detroit - get rid of the blacks. Anyone who's honest will admit that there is no other remedy on the horizon.

Detroit and the Michigan auto factories were salvation for the poor blacks suffering in the fields of Mississippi. But where will they go now? What will they do?

Whiskey says we are living in a Science Fiction world. Again he's right. But the World of the Future has never had much use for unskilled labor. When my ancestor began the black slave trade to America, we needed their labor. Not anymore.

No one wants to think about this. It's too scary. Whiskey has the problem pretty much described - roaming black youth mobs organized through advanced technology. Now he needs to step up and propose a solution. No fair proposing genocide.

I have a solution and like all real solutions involves getting rid of black people as they are presently constituted. We need to fix the black brain. For reasons that are not completely understood black people are about 80cc short on frontal lobe tissue. Black people who have high IQs are good citizens. We just need more of them.

Finding how to fix the black brain is likely to be the only way to save them. Genocide looms otherwise. I doubt if whites would ever resort to genocide but I am less sure about the Chinese.

"I've long found it astounding how much Chicago just dropped off the nation's mental map since the early '90s."

I hate to break it the Chicago people here, but Chicago hasn't really been on the mental map of the rest of America since long before the early 90's.

LA is the city that has fallen off since the early 90's. It used to be that LA was the default setting for every other TV show and movie. Starting in the late 90's, the entertainment industry started to make an effort to explicitly set stories in other places to make things seem "more authentic."

On another note, I would argue that Philadelphia has the worst black mob/anti-white crime problem. Overtly racially motivated murders of whites by blacks have been common there for decades. Philly is where I first heard about these cell phone based roving mobs attacking whites. Philly also has a very long and extensive history of black nationalist groups.

As a resident of Allentown I'd just like to point out we've been inundated with Puerto Rican and Dominicans as opposed to blacks. The results aren't pretty. The place is generally considered a lost cause at this point. Can't wait to get out before I even consider having a family.

"You’re missing my point. European cities had their golden ages, but those were long ago. Since the 1940s, America’s been the main center of intellectual and creative activity in the Western world. Paris had, long ago, the likes of Voltaire and Descartes. Now it’s got Bernard-Henri Levy. Florence had Michelangelo and Machiavelli, now it’s got…who?"

No, you are the one missing my point. Just because a city has an university with a lot of money that can attract scientists, doesen't mean those scientists chose to live there because they WANTED TO. Paris is a city that throughout the centuries has attracted large numbers of philosophers, scientists and especially artists.

You talk about Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Prize was created a litte more than 100 years ago. So you are reducing all of Western Civilization to the past 100 years? The number of GREAT scientists and mathematicians who's achievements far surpass anything that any Nobelist from the University of Chicago have ever accomplisheed who CHOSE to live in Paris was tremendous.

It is idiotic to argue that Chicago is in ANY WAY as important as Paris to the history of science, mathematics and especially the arts. It is even more idiotic to try to argue that Chicago has the same World-reknown that Paris. Here is a hint for you: very few people outside America knows that Chhicago even exists, but everyone has heard of Paris. The only American city that is on the same league of reknown as Paris is New York City, and that's it.

As for Florence, I rest my case. A single one of Michelangelo's work surpasses all those Nobels from the University of Chicago in World recognition and importance. Everyone knows the Sistine Chapel, but who knows about the work of the University of Chicago economists outside the World of economics theory and finance?

Michelangelo's achievements in the arts >>>>>>>> ALL of the University of Chicago's Nobels put together.

LA is the city that has fallen off since the early 90's. It used to be that LA was the default setting for every other TV show and movie. Starting in the late 90's, the entertainment industry started to make an effort to explicitly set stories in other places to make things seem "more authentic."

This would be great fodder for its own huge thread at iSteve - I am convinced that leading edge television is getting very HBD-ish [even if only subconsciously] and is skewing hard towards the Whiteopias, with much more realistic portrayals of the minorities [where especially both Mexican Amerindian Illegals and North American "Constitutional/Treatied/Reservation" Amerindians are the new bad guys].

I'm talking about stuff like Breaking Bad, The Killing, Longmire, even Mad Men.

For that matter, The Walking Dead and Hell On Wheels are extremely white-centric [at least so far, although apparently The Walking Dead is about to introduce a major new black character].

“It is idiotic to argue that Chicago is in ANY WAY as important as Paris to the history of science, mathematics and especially the arts. It is even more idiotic to try to argue that Chicago has the same World-reknown [sic] that [sic] Paris.”

Of course it is, which is why I never argued that. You seem to be reading something that I didn’t write.

"Settle down Pepe LePeu. No on is denying Paris was great hundreds of years ago."

Saying it again, I am not a Frenchman.

Paris is actually greater today than any American city with the possible exception of New York City.

Which city receives more tourists, Paris or Chicago? Which city has more historical monuments and artistic attractions, Paris or Chicago? Which city is better known throughout the World, Paris or Chicago?

It is amazing to me the lack of respect from Steve Sailor's readers for Europe and it's great achievements. I am not European BTW. I am Asian. We travel to the U.S.A for fun and play ONLY, and not for any kind of cultural immersion for the simple reason that there is no culture to immerge in the U.S.A.

Everything that is best from white people were created by Europeans and is in Europe. In Latin America white people killed Indians, raped the land and created a feudalistic society of slaves with white masters at the top. In the U.S.A, white people created a completely utilitarian, burgeoise Society that is a very good place to make money but has ZERO charm, refinement or nobility of purpose whatsoever.

Europe is the face of white people to the World, and it is a beautiful face. Everything that is good and noble about white people is apparent in Europe. Americans are excused for their "culture" of Coca-Cola, blue jeans and McDonald's hamburgers by the culture of their fathers in Europe. The U.S.A is a country that white people started to make money, and that's it. They left all their sense of aesthetic beauty and ability to abstract in Europe. Money-making and not pondering the secrets of the Universe. Thomas Edison and not Isaac Newton.

"Which city receives more tourists, Paris or Chicago? Which city has more historical monuments and artistic attractions, Paris or Chicago? Which city is better known throughout the World, Paris or Chicago?"

You know what makes sense? Comparing the cultural achievements of a city whose origins stretch back millennia, to a city which traces its origins to 1795.

"Money-making and not pondering the secrets of the Universe. Thomas Edison and not Isaac Newton."

So I guess that time when a bunch of world-class physicists decided that their home turf was getting a little too tense, and decided to choose an American city over Paris in their monumental work cracking the secrets of the atom never happened then. Never.

Of course, had that happened, I'm sure that it was the lack of "charm, refinement or nobility of purpose" that drove them to come here and act as one of the deciding factors in who would become a power after the war, rather than going to some other more refined culture. Perhaps they just couldn't find any other culture that would take them, what with the whole Jewish thing. Either of those ringing your bell?

I don't feel qualified to judge the world's greatest cities, but when I went to Paris, I was awed by the trees. Countless rows trimmed to perfection, amazing. I saw a woman with a rubber mallet, testing each tree for hollowness and writing notes on a clipboard. Maybe their best years are behind them, maybe not, but they sure do have one hell of a maintenance program, the place is a masterpiece of preservation.

I'm quite embarrassed by that patch of green asphalt in the middle of Times Square that we call a public space.

""Which city receives more tourists, Paris or Chicago? Which city has more historical monuments and artistic attractions, Paris or Chicago? Which city is better known throughout the World, Paris or Chicago?"

You know what makes sense? Comparing the cultural achievements of a city whose origins stretch back millennia, to a city which traces its origins to 1795.

"Money-making and not pondering the secrets of the Universe. Thomas Edison and not Isaac Newton."

So I guess that time when a bunch of world-class physicists decided that their home turf was getting a little too tense, and decided to choose an American city over Paris in their monumental work cracking the secrets of the atom never happened then. Never.

Of course, had that happened, I'm sure that it was the lack of "charm, refinement or nobility of purpose" that drove them to come here and act as one of the deciding factors in who would become a power after the war, rather than going to some other more refined culture. Perhaps they just couldn't find any other culture that would take them, what with the whole Jewish thing. Either of those ringing your bell?"

Again, just because scientists went there doesen't mean they went there for inspiration.

The scentists, philosophers and artists who went to live in Paris did so because they WANTED TO LIVE THERE.

And America has not produced any truly great theoretical physicist. Who are you talking about? Ed Witten? LOL. Pretty much ALL the great theoretical physicists were European. The U.S.A is the land of practical inventors and not theoreticians. Americans are MONEY-MAKERS and not abstract thinkers. Most of those Nobels from UOC were in econimics or MINOR achievements in physics, usually in practical applications.

I am sorry, but you cannot compare Chicago to Paris in the number of great men of knowledge who worked there. This is not an argument; it is retarded. I am sorry.

And the other guy brought up Nobel Prizes and said France has 64. Well, guess what? That means the French have MORE Nobel Prizes than Americans on a per capita basis. This is really incredible considering that for the past 70 years or so the U.S has had a lot more money than France to invest in research and the infra-structures of it's universities and yet the French still have you beat. And of course, America does not have a SINGLE mathematician of the importance of Descartes or LaPlace, or a scientist on the level of Pasteur.

I am Asian, I have a high IQ and I am telling you that Europe is the best thing white people have created. Why the hell are you arguing with me? Just accept it and move on!

The Europeans who immigrated to America and formed the white American people were the rabble of Europe. They were the poor and the idiots who couldn't make it in Europe, so they went to America. Those Irish who came to America during the potato famine were not the best and brightest of Ireland. The Germans who came to America were the dispossed peasants from the Rhineland and not the aristocrats. The Europeans with graduate degrees were well-off and didn't go to the U.S. America is a country formed by losers. Hey, at least you guys can take solace on the fact that white people from Latin America are even bigger losers than you. All they are good for is having sex with Amerindian women, steal land and overtax their brown subjects into misery. They earn all these fancy degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, etc, and what do they do when they get home? They continue to have sex with Amerindian women, steal from their own countries and overtax their brown slaves so they can buy fancy military toys to impress each other.

Europe is the true civilization. Whites of the Americas are their retarded children.

There is of course a deep connection between Paris and Chicago. In the late nineteenth century Americans began to feel that they were philistines. We had commerce, they thought, but we lacked art and graceful public architecture.

This gave rise to what was known as the "City Beautiful" movement. The main proponents were Frederick Law Olmstead and Daniel Burnam. Almost all American cities have been touched by this movement. New York has Central Park. San Francisco has Golden Gate Park and the whole Civic Center complex. Burnam and Olmstead and many others visited Paris to learn how an American city could look.

The movement reached it's apex with the Columbian Expostion of 1892 in Chicago. Chicago wanted to be Paris, or at least look like it.

Well, I visted Italy about 20 years ago and Italy is a bit dirty in most major ciites, the clean cities of Italy are in the north like Milan. Even the toilets were dirty paid toliets in one city. I love Roman History but modern Italy doesn't care as favorably with the US. Anicent Rome compared good to other anicent cities. As for France or Germany comparing favorable to the US I never visted them so I can't comment.

"Europe is the true civilization. Whites of the Americas are their retarded children."

While I don't dispute that it was largely European peasants/lower class that came to North America, it is absolutely remarkable what those "retards" were able to accomplish. French Canadians are almost exclusively descended from French peasants and they often do quite well on standardized tests (such as PISA)- often out scoring France. Quebec has one of the lowest crime rates of any jurisdictions in North America.

Irish Americans seems to be doing better than their long lost cousins in Ireland. I'd feel much safer in heavily Irish South Boston than I would in Glasgow, Liverpool or Dublin for that matter. I'm honestly not sure about German-Americans though, I don't know if their is enough data available on this group and how they compare to Germans in Europe.

Oakland would be freaking amazing, prime location, if they figured a way to displace the NAM populace to, say, Tracy or Patterson. Eventually they will light upon a method and it'll be "disruptive" game-changing as all get-out. Murray was right to be worried in the new book on that outcome...

To the anonymous "high-IQ asian" nitwit who has been whining throughout this thread:

"Anonymous said...

Money-making and not pondering the secrets of the Universe. Thomas Edison and not Isaac Newton."

Actually, Isaac Newton was the warden of the royal mint, and so was very much concerned with - in a quite literal sense - making money.

"Again, just because scientists went there doesen't mean they went there for inspiration."

Scientists don't go anywhere for inspiration. They are inspired by science, not the local night-clubs and coffee-house culture.

"And America has not produced any truly great theoretical physicist. Who are you talking about? Ed Witten? LOL. Pretty much ALL the great theoretical physicists were European. The U.S.A is the land of practical inventors and not theoreticians. Americans are MONEY-MAKERS and not abstract thinkers. Most of those Nobels from UOC were in econimics or MINOR achievements in physics, usually in practical applications."

You are evidently an idiot, who knows not whereof he speaks. Most of the top theoretical physicists of the last half of the twentieth century were Americans, born and raised: Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, etc. And to characterize the achievements of other lesser known physicsts as "minor" betrays your ignorance of science. The work of Michaelson, Millikan, Lawrence, Compton, Shockley, Bardeen, Brattain, Schriefer, Cooper, Hubbel, and many Americans was not "minor". Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain invented the transistor, for christ's sake. Bardeen was the only man to win two Nobel prizes in physics. Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the Universe - minor and practical? Alvarez and Shoemaker revolutionized our understanding of life (and death) on Earth.

"I am Asian, I have a high IQ and I am telling you that Europe is the best thing white people have created. Why the hell are you arguing with me? Just accept it and move on!"

That is one of the most assinine, ridiculous, and lamest things I have ever read on a blog. You are quite obviously a lame-brain and a retard. Just accept it, and move on.

Efficiency and progress is ours once more Now that we have the neutron bomb It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done Away with excess enemy But no less value to property No sense in war but perfect sense at home

The sun beams down on a brand new day No more welfare tax to pay Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light Jobless millions whisked away At last we have more room to play All systems go to kill the poor tonight

Gonna Kill kill kill kill kill the poor tonight

Behold the sparkle of champagne The crime rate's gone Feel free again O' life's a dream with you, miss lily white Jane fonda on the screen today Convinced the liberals it's okay So let's get dressed and dance away the night

In Detroit, who do the black people shake down for change? Light a cigarette anywhere in a major city and it's an excuse for some black person to bum one. How many times I'm approached for money and cigarettes, is my quality of life gauge. I wish the government would give blacks free cigarettes. It would probably prevent a lot of interactions which lead to crimes.

If I was from Chicago, I'd be really pissed about the last few posts. I don't think I'd like most people who love their home because it is great, you should love it for the same reasons that you love your mother.

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